u 55- 



i IRR&RY OF CONGRESS 

■■■■I 

015 819 614 1 



54th Congress, ) SENATE. ( Beport 

2d Session. \ } No. 1160. 



1786 
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»y 1 



EECOGNtTION OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 



/ 



December 21, 1896.— Ordered to be printed. 



Mr. Cameron, from the Committee on Foreign Belations, submitted 

the following 

REPORT. 

[To accompany Senate Joint Kes. 163.] 

Congress, at its last session, after long and patient consideration, 
adopted with practical unanimity the view expressed by your commit- 
tee that the time had come for resuming intervention with Spain for the 
recognition of the independence of Cuba. Spaiu having declined to 
listen to any representation founded on an understanding between 
herself and the insurgents, and Congress having pledged itself to 
friendly intervention, the only question that remains to be decided is 
the nature of the next step to be taken, with proper regard to the cus- 
toms and usages of nations. 

Before deciding this question, your committee has preferred to exam- 
ine with some care all the instances which have occurred during this 
century of insurgent peoples claiming independence by right of revolt. 
The inquiry has necessarily led somewhat far, especially because the 
right of revolt or insurrection, if insurrection can be properly called a 
right, seems, in every instance except one, to have carried with it a 
corresponding intervention. For convenience, we have regarded both 
insurrection and intervention as recognized rights, and have attempted 
to ascertain the limits within which these rights have been exercised 
and their force admitted by the general consent of nations. 

The long duration of the French revolutionary wars, which disturbed 
the entire world for five and twenty years, and left it in a state of great 
confusion, fixed the beginning of our modern international systems at 
the year 1815, in the treaties of Vienna, of Paris, and of the Holy 
Alliance. The settlement of local disturbances, under the influence of 
the powers parties to these treaties, proceeded without serious disa- 
greement until 1821, when the Greeks rose in insurrection against the 
Sultan. The modern precedents of European insurrection and inter- 
vention, where independence was the issue involved, began with Greece. 

1. GREECE, 1821-1827. 

The revolution broke out in Greece at the end of March, 1821. Within 
a month the rebels got possession of all the open country and all the 
towns, except so far as they were held by Turkish garrisons. The Sultan 
immediately called all Mussulmans to arms; the Greek Patriarch was 
hanged at the door of his own church at Constantinople; several hundred 



n- 



2 RECOGNITION OP CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 

merchants were massacred; several hundred Christian churches were 
destroyed, and the Russian ambassador was insulted. 

Russia was then the head of the "Holy Alliance," the union of Rus- 
sia, Austria, and Prussia-, which had crashed Napoleon and guaranteed 
the peace of Europe. The Greek revolution was the work of liberal 
forces which had produced the disturbances of 1789, and which the 
Holy Alliance existed chiefly to combat. No government in Europe 
sympathized with the Greek rebels. Austria was entirely hostile. Eng- 
land and Prussia followed the same impulse. France feared interven- 
tion on account of her royalist dynasty. Even Russia, the only power 
which must profit by weakening Turkey, was interested in revolution- 
izing the principalities, but not in revolutionizing Greece. 

This universal fear of innovation caused no small part of the interest 
suddenly developed in the practice of international law and its limi- 
tations for the advantage of legitimate Governments. The neutrality 
acts of the United States and of England took shape in 1818 and 1819. 
The great powers of Europe held congress after congress for the inter- 
national settlement of political and even social difficulties; at Aix in 
1818; at Carlsbad in 1819; at Vienna in 1820; at Troppau, October- 
December, 1820; at Laibach from January to May, 1821; and subse- 
quently at Vienna and Verona in the last six months of 1822. At 
Troppau, in November, 1820, the three powers of Russia, Austria, and 
Prussia united in signing a protocol expressly intended to assert the 
right of intervention in all cases where a European power "should 
sutler, in its internal regime, an alteration brought about by revolt, and 
the results of which are menacing for other States." The language of 
this protocol had much to do with the subsequent course of events. 

Faithful to the principles they have proclaimed and the respect due to the authority 
of every legitimate Government, as well as to every act which emanates from its free 
will, the Allied Powers will engage to refuse their recognition to changes consum- 
mated by illegal methods. When States where such changes shall have been effectu- 
ated shall cause other countries to fear, by their proximity, an imminent danger, and 
when the Allied Powers can exercise in regard to them an efficacious and beneficent 
action, they will employ, in order to restore them to the bosom of the Alliance, at 
first friendly processes ; in the second place, a coercive force, if the exercise of that 
force becomes indispensable. 

England and France did not join in this declaration, or in the inter- 
vention in Naples which was its immediate object; but the Alliance 
acted systematically on the principle thus laid down, which was in the 
full energy of its operation, when, four months afterwards, the Greeks 
broke into revolt. 

For these reasons the Greek insurrection assumed great importance 
in the eyes of all the civilized world and in the history of international 
relations. Other revolts were directed merely against a local authority, 
and aimed to subvert a dynasty or an oppressive rule. The Greeks 
fought for independence, and since the Declaration of Independence 
by the United States in 1776, no new nationality, based on successful 
insurrection, had been recognized by Europe. 

Russia almost instantly began by calling the attention of the allies to 
her claim that the whole Greek race, whether in Greece proper, or in the 
islands, or in the principalities, were of right under Russian protection. 
This declaration was made June 22, 1821, within three months of the out- 
break of the revolution, and two years before the Monroe doctrine took 
shape. It was coldly received by all the powers except Prussia, while 
the Turkish Government rejected with indignation a simultaneous 
warning from Russia in the form of an ultimatum, dated June 28, that 
the further coexistence of Turkey with other European States would 



'•■' J2-6 



RECOGNITION OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 3 

v ^depend on her conduct in this matter, which was a European and uni- 
versal interest that Russia claimed the peculiar right to defend. Under 
these circumstances the Russian ambassador left Constantinople, 

N August 10, 1821. 

The concessions demanded by Russia in her ultimatum did not then 

V V include any settlement of the Greek insurrection. They chiefly con- 
cerned the principalities. An entire year passed before the other pow- 
ders succeeded in bringing Turkey to concessions that opened a possi- 
bility of restoring her diplomatic relations with Russia and dealing with 
the subjects in dispute. Only when at last the powers induced Turkey 
to consent to allow her affairs to be discussed in a general conference did 
Russia insist that the Greek insurrection should be included among the 
subjects of mediation. The Turkish Government declared in the most 
energetic language that it would never admit of such interference, or 
consent to make the affairs of Greece a subject of negotiation with Rus- 
sia. In the face of this declaration, made in July, 1822, the other pow- 
ers, led by Austria and supported by England, under the horror roused 
by the massacre of Chios, abandoned their jealousy of Russia and their 
dread of insurrection so far as to join in insisting that Turkey should 
yield, and that the affairs of Greece should be made the subject of joint 
intervention; but in spite of this pressure, Turkey did not yield, and 
the powers held new conferences at Vienna and at Verona, which lasted 
till December, 1822, and which, while deciding on intervention in Italy 
and Spain, ended by yielding to Turkey an indefinite postponement of 
the Greek dispute. In this postponement Russia seemed cordially to 
acquiesce. The dread of revolution overcame for the moment the other 
interests of the Russian people. 

In the whole discussion, from March, 1821, until January, 1823, the 
right of intervention was never disputed, except by Turkey. On that 
point the whole law was stated in conversation between the British 
ambassador and the Turkish minister. The Turk took the ground that 
everything had been done by Turkey if she had satisfied her treaty 
obligations. "Everything as against Russia," replied Strangford, the 
British ambassador, " but not as regards the allies and friends of the 
Porte. According to Turkish law, it was not allowed to leave a house 
in a condition that endangered a neighbor's safety. The Turkish Gov- 
ernment believed it had restored the old solidity of the wall, but he 
(Lord Strangford) feared they were mistaken." "God forbid!" said 
the Turk; "but in any case this would be our affair, not yours !" " God 
forbid !" repeated Lord Strangford; "for this is our affair as well as 
yours." 

This was the situation when Lord Castlereagh died, and George 
Canning became prime minister of England. Down to that moment the 
British Government had identified itself with the Turkish Government, 
and had overstepped the line of neutrality in order to assist the Turkish 
campaigns by sea and land. Lord Castlereagh and Lord Strangford 
avowedly considered the Greeks as a worthless and mongrel race, inca- 
pable of self-government, whose claims were to be wholly rejected. 
George Canning held that the greater danger to the peace and welfare 
of Europe was the Holy Alliance and its system of political interfer 
ence; but in the case of Greece, where the Holy Alliance had refrained 
from interfering, while it was actively repressing disturbances in Spain 
and Italy, Canning held that intervention was proper and that the 
duties and interests of England required her to intervene. His chief 
anxiety was to bring about his object without war between any of the 
parties. 



4 RECOGNITION OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 

He began by recognizing Greek belligerency. The Greeks issued a 
proclamation declaring a strict blockade of the ports of Patras and 
Lepanto; and thereupon the Ionian high commissioner, on the 17th of 
November, 1824, recognized this "communication from persons exercis- 
ing the functions of government in Greece," and ordered "all ships and 
boats of whatever description, bearing the Ionian flag 'to respect the 
same in the most strict and exact manner.' " 

This seems to have been the step which led to Canning's somewhat 
famous definition of the nature of belligerency, in 1825. "The Turkish 
Government," we are told, "complained that the British Government 
allowed to the Greeks a belligerent character, and observed that it 
appeared to forget that to subjects in rebellion no national character 
could properly belong." To this remonstrance Canning replied, through 
the British resident at Constantinople, that "the character of belliger- 
ency was not so much a principle as a fact; that a certain degree of 
force and consistency acquired by any mass of population engaged in 
war entitled that population to be treated as a belligerent, and, even 
if their title were questionable, rendered it the interest, well under- 
stood, of all civilized nations so to treat them." 

This proposition must have seemed somewhat broad, even to Canning, 
for in applying it to the special case of Greece he added that " a power 
or community, call it which you will, which was at war with another and 
which covered the sea with its cruisers, must either be acknowledged 
as a belligerent or dealt with as a pirate." At that time no other power 
than England, and Turkey, least of all, admitted the necessity of this 
alternative, since the war had then lasted four years without producing 
it; but what no other power was ready to admit in 1825 became the 
accepted law of all Europe in 1861 in a form much more pronounced. 
Although this dictum of Canning's was never, so far as we know, 
officially published, it was quoted by Lord John Bussell, then Her 
Majesty's principal secretary of state for foreign affairs, in the speech 
which he made in the House of Commons May 6, 1861, as his single and 
sufficient authority to justify the step upon which he and his colleagues 
in the Government had decided, of recognizing the belligerency of the 
"power or community," which he officially called "the Southern Con- 
federacy of America," and which at that time had not a ship at sea or 
an army on land, and which had given as yet no official evidence of a 
war to the British Govermnent. Simultaneously the same action was 
adopted by the Government of France, which "concurred entirely in 
the views of Her Majesty's Government," and whose concurrence, in the 
absence of protest or objection by any other power, made Eussell's 
view the accepted practice of Europe. 

Canning's recognition of Greek belligerency in 1825, as well as the 
joint recognition of "the Southern Confederacy of America" in 1861. 
was only the first step toward an anticipated system of intervention. 
To this subject we shall be obliged to return, after the further story of 
the Greek precedent has been told. Canning followed up the recogni- 
tion of belligerency by making a direct offer of assistance to the Greeks- 
Early in the year 1824 a paper purporting to be a plan of pacification for 
Greece, drawn up by the Court of St. Petersburg, had appeared in the 
European Gazettes, and, although no one knew from what source the 
Gazettes had received it, no one seriously disputed its authenticity. 
The plan suggested the division of Greece into three Principalities, under 
Turkish garrisons, with an internal organization to be guaranteed by 
the combined, powers. The Greek Government, alarmed at this sug- 
gestion, wrote to Canning a strong remonstrance and an appeal to the 



RECOGNITION OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 5 

help and protection of England. The letter reached Canning Novem- 
ber 4, jnst at the moment when he was considering the Greek blockade. 
His reply, dated December 1, 1824, contained a paragraph which invited 
the Greeks to place their interests in his hands : 

If they should at any time hereafter think it fit to solicit our mediation, we should 
be ready to tender it to the Porte; and, if accepted by the Porte, to do our best to 
carry it into effect, conjointly with other powers. * * * This appears to the 
British Government all that can reasonably be asked of them. 

The Greeks, whose military position was desperate, at length decided 
not only to act on Canning's suggestion, but to place themselves abso- 
lutely in the hands of Great Britain. This they did by a formal act in 
June, 1825. The trust was declined, but Canning, strengthened by 
this authority, was enabled to draw Eussia away from Austrian influ- 
ence, and to negotiate in St. Petersburg, in the form of a protocol, dated 
April 4, 1826, an agreement for a joint offer of mediation to Turkey for 
the pacification of Greece. Upon this protocol rests the diplomatic 
value of the subsequent intervention. 

His Britannic Majesty, having been requested by the Greeks to interpose his good 
offices in order to obtain their reconciliation with the Ottoman Porte, having in con- 
sequence offered his mediation to that power, and being desirous of concerting the 
measures of his Government with His Majesty the Emperor of all the Kussias, and 
His Imperial Majesty, on the other hand, being equally animated by the desire of 
putting an end to the contest of which Greece and the archipelago are the theater 
by an arragement which shall be consistent with the principles of religion, justice 
and humanity, have agreed — 

1. That the arrangement to be proposed to the Porte, if that Government should 
accept the proffered mediation, should have for its object to place the Greeks toward 
the Ottoman Porte in the relation hereafter mentioned: 

Greece should be a dependency of that Empire, etc. * * * 

Canning wished to save Turkey from Eussian aggression, but Turkey 
refused to be saved. The Sultan would listen to no mediation between 
himself and his revolted subjects, least of all at a moment when his 
military position warranted him in feeling sure of success in subduing 
the revolt. Another year passed without bringing the issue to a point. 
Then France joined with England and Eussia, and the three powers, on 
the 5th of July, 1827, united in a formal treaty signed in London, which 
committed them to armed intervention in case the Sultan should still 
reject their proffered mediation, within the space of one month. 

The preamble to this treaty set forth the motives which led the three 
sovereigns to intervene: 

Penetrated with the necessity of putting an end to the sanguinary contest which, 
by delivering up the Greek provinces and the isles of the archipelago to all the dis- 
orders of anarchy, produces daily fresh impediments to the commerce of the Euro- 
pean States and gives occasion to piracies which not only expose the subjects of 
the high contracting parties to considerable losses, but besides render necessary 
burdensome measures of protection and repression, His Majesty the King of the 
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and His Majesty the King of France 
and Navarre, having besides received on the part of the Greeks a pressing request 
to interpose their mediation with the Ottoman Porte, and being, as well as His 
Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, animated by the desire of stopping the 
effusion of blood and of arresting the evils of all kinds which might arise from 
the continuance of such a state of things, have resolved to unite their efforts and 
to regulate the operation thereof by a formal treaty, with a view of reestablishing 
peace between the contending parties by means of an arrangement which is called 
for as much by humanity as by interest of the repose of Europe. 

The treaty proceeded to bind the three parties to offer their media- 
tion immediately on the basis of Turkish suzerainty and Greek self- 
government, and in case Turkey should not accept within one month 
the proposed mediation the powers should prevent further hostilities 
by ordering their squadrons to interpose. 



6 RECOGNITION OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE 

The Turkish Government August 30 reiterated its decided, uncon- 
ditional, final, and unchangeable refusal to receive any proposition on 
behalf of the Greeks. The next day the ambassadors sent the neces- 
sary orders to their squadrons, and in attempting to carry out these 
orders the admirals, much to the regret of the British Government, 
brought on the battle of Navarino, October 20, 1827. 

2. BELGIUM, 1830. 

The next European nation that claimed its independence on the 
ground of the right of revolution was the Belgian. 

By a provision of the general European settlement of 1815 Holland 
and Belgium were united in one kingdom, known as that of the Neth- 
erlands, over which was placed the son of the last Stadtholder of Hol- 
land, as King William I of the Netherlands. 

When the French Revolution of July, 1830, occurred, it spread 
instantly to the Netherlands. Toward the end of August, 1830, dis- 
turbances began, and soon became so serious as to threaten grave com- 
plications abroad as well as at home. 

King William sent a formal note, dated October 5, to the British 
Government, identical with notes to Prussia, Austria, and Bussia, the 
four contracting parties to the treaty of 1815, calling on them to restore 
order, since all were bound "to support the Kingdom of the Nether- 
lands and the actual state of Europe." 

Representatives of the four powers, and with them the representative 
of Prance, met in London, November 4, 1830, and adopted a protocol : 

His Majesty the King of the Netherlands having invited the courts of Great 
Britain, Austria, France, Prussia, and Russia, in their quality of powers signatory 
to the treaties of Paris and Vienna, which constituted the Kingdom of the Nether- 
lands, to deliberate in concert with his Majesty on the best means of putting an 
end to the troubles which have broken out in his states ; and the courts above-named 
having experienced, even before receiving this invitation, a warm desire to arrest 
with the shortest possible delay the disorder and the effusion of blood, have con- 
certed. * * * 

This protocol at once set aside the King of the Netherlands, ignoring 
his exclusive claim to support, and "to deliberate in concert." With- 
out concerting with or supporting King William, the five powers 
imposed an immediate armistice on both parties. 

Naturally the Belgian rebels then declared themselves independent. 
With such encouragement their safety was guaranteed almost beyond 
the possibility of risk. The claim of independence was made November 
18, 1830, and was recognized one month later by the powers in their 
seventh conference, December 20. The representatives of the five 
powers, whose names were among the most famous in diplomacy — Tal- 
leyrand, Lieven, Esterhazy, Palmerston, Bulow — adopted, without the 
adhesion or even an invitation to be present of the Netherlands min- 
ister, a protocol which announced intervention pure and simple, begin- 
ning with the abrupt recognition of the revolutionary government: 

The plenipotentiaries of the five courts, having received the formal adhesion of 
the Belgian Government to the armistice proposed to it, and which the King of the 
Netherlands has also accepted, * * * the conference will occupy itself in discuss- 
ing and concerting the new arrangements most proper to combine the future inde- 
pendence of Belgium with the interests and the security of the other powers, and 
the preservation, of the European equilibrium. 

The Netherlands minister immediately recorded, December 22, a 
formal protest, and a reservation of King William's right to decide on 
"such ulterior measures as should be taken in the double interests of 
his own dignity and the well-being of his faithful subjects." 

A few days later, January 4, 1831, Holland entered a still more 



RECOGNITION OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 7 

formal protest. lu this strong and dignified paper the King's Govern- 
ment pointed out to the five powers the extreme importance of the uew 
precedent they Lad established in international law. 

As King, called to guard the well-being of a fraction of the European population, 
His Majesty has been deeply concerned to remark that the complications arisen in 
Europe have appeared so grave that it has been thought proj>er, as the only remedy, 
to sanction the results of a revolt which was provoked by no legitimate motive, and 
thus to compromise the stability of all thrones, the social order of all States, and 
the happiness, the repose, and the prosperity of all peoples. 

Independent of the solidarity established between the different members of the 
European system, His Majesty, as sovereign of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, has 
seen in it an attack directed against his rights. 

If the treaty of Paris of 1814 placed Belgium at the disposition of the high allies, 
these, from the moment they fixed the lot of the Belgian provinces, renounced, accord- 
ing to the law of nations, the faculty of returning on their work, and the dissolu- 
tion of tho bonds formed between Holland and Belgium under the sovereignty of the 
Mouse of Orange Nassau, became placed beyond the sphere of their attributes. The 
increase of territory assigned to the united provinces of the Netherlands was, more- 
over, acquired under burdensome conditions, for valuable consideration, requiring 
tho sacrifice of several of their colonies, the expense required to fortify several 
places of the southern provinces of the Kingdom, and other pecuniary charges. 

The conference assembled, it is true, at the request of the King, but that circum- 
stance did not confer on the conference the right to give its protocols a direction at 
variance with the object for which its assistance had been asked, and, instead of 
cooperating in the establishment of order in the Netherlands, to make them tend to 
the dismemberment of the Kingdom. 

Without noticing this protest, the conference proceeded on January 
27, 1831, to fix the boundaries and other conditions of the new State. 
The Belgians, on the 4th of June, elected a king who was instantly 
recognized by the powers. On the 26th of June the conference adopted 
another series of eighteen articles. The King of Holland replied, July 
12, that these new articles were very important changes, wholly in the 
interests of Belgium and to the injury of Holland. 

The Belgians meanwhile continued to organize their Government on 
a basis, diplomatic and territorial, that assumed in their favor all the 
points in dispute. The King of Holland, therefore, put an end to the 
armistice and marching forward routed the Belgian forces, August 11, 
and moved on Brussels. Belgium was then at his mercy. The King 
of the Belgians meanwhile wrote directly to the King of France request- 
ing the immediate succor of a corps of French troops, and without wait- 
ng for concert with other powers the French Government marched 
40,000 men across the frontier. (Granville to Palmerston, August 4, 
1831. British State Papers, 1833.) 

Thus within less than a year, after rebellion had broken out and 
without waiting for evidence of the right or the military force of 
the insurrection, every sort of intervention took place — diplomatic and 
military, joint and separate. Nor did the intervention stop with the 
measures taken for the succor of Belgium. As King William of 
Holland continued to reject the conditions imposed by the powers and 
held Antwerp as a pledge for more favorable conditions of peace, 
the Governments of France and England, abandoning the European 
concert, announced that they should put their naval and military forces 
in motion, and accordingly the British Govervment, November — , 1832, 
embargoed Dutch ships and blockaded the Dutch coast, while the 
French army, November 14, formally laid siege to Antwerp. 

3. POLAND, 1831. 

While the Belgian revolution was going on a rebellion broke out in 
the ancient Kingdom of Poland, and on January 25, 1831, the Polish 
Diet declared the Czar Nicholas no longer King of Poland, and elected 



8 RECOGNITION OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 

a regency of five members, with Prince Adam George Ozartoriski at 
its head. 

The Czar instantly gave notice to the minister of the new French 
King, Louis Philippe, that he would tolerate no intervention in Poland. 
Louis Philippe, who owed his own crown to the right of revolution, was 
the only sovereign in Europe who could be supposed likely to inter- 
pose; but, for the moment, his interest in France and Belgium absorbed 
all his energy. Much popular sympathy was felt for the Poles, and 
Lafayette, then near the end of his life, founded a Polish committee, 
and raised money for their assistance. Before the question could 
acquire diplomatic importance by establishing a claim founded on the 
power of the rebels to maintain themselves, the Russian armies crushed 
the rebellion, and on September 8 regained possession of Warsaw. 
The entire struggle lasted barely nine months, and from the first its 
result was universally regarded as inevitable, or in the highest degree 
unpromising to the success of the revolution. As a diplomatic prece- 
dent, it seems to have no value, except as far as it offered an example 
of the power of Russia as the Belgian insurrection had shown the power 
of England and France when in union. 

4. HUNGARY, 1849. 

The next European people who claimed recognition as an independent 
member of the family of nations seems to have been the Hungarians. 

On the 14th of April, 1849, the Hungarian Diet formally declared 
Hungary an independent State, and the Hapsburg dynasty forever 
deposed from the throne. The next day the Diet elected Louis Kos- 
suth provisional president. 

In regard to history, geographical importance, population, and mili- 
tary resources, this people had no occasion to excuse or explain their 
claims or their rights. Hungary was not a new country. Its govern- 
ment existed from time immemorial, and its right to change its sovereign 
was as complete as that of England or of France. The provisional 
government had nearly 150,000 men in arms at that moment. The Aus- 
trian Emperor could hardly dispose of a larger force for the purpose 
of conquest. 

The young Emperor (Francis Joseph) instantly appealed for aid to the 
Czar (Nicholas) of Russia, who instantly intervened. The Czar issued 
a manifesto April 27, stating the facts and the grounds on which his 
intervention was believed to be legitimate. This paper founded the 
right of intervention, not on the weakness of the belligerent, but on 
his strength. Russia asserted as a principle that she must inter- 
vene because if she did not intervene Hungary would establish her 
independence: 

The insurrection in Hungary [began the manifesto of April 27, 1849] has of late 
made so much progress that Russia can not possibly remain inactive. * * * Such 
a state of things endangers our dearest interests, and prudence compels us to antici- 
pate the difficulties it prepares for us. The Austrian Government being for the 
moment unable to oppose a sufficient power to the insurgents, it has formally 
requested His Majesty the Emperor (Nicholas) to assist in the repression of a rebel- 
lion which endangers the tranquillity of the two Empires. It was but natural that 
the two cabinets should understand one another on this point of common interest, 
and our troops have consequently advanced into Galicia to cooperate with Austria 
against the Hungarian rebellion. We trust the Governments that are equally inter- 
ested in the maintenance of tranquillity will not misunderstand our motives of 
action. The Emperor (Nicholas) is sorry to quit the passive and expectant position 
which he has hitherto maintained, but still he remains faithful to the spirit of his 
former declarations; for, in granting to every State the right to arrange its own 
political constitution according to its own mind and refraining from interfering with 



RECOGNITION OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 9 

any alterations of their form of government which such States might think proper 
to make, His Majesty reserved to himself his full liberty of action in case the reac- 
tion of revolutions near him should teud to endanger his own safety or the political 
equilibrium on the frontiers of his Empire. 1 

This precedent tended to establish the right of every Government to 
intervene in the affairs of foreign States whenever their situation should 
"tend to endanger its own safety or the political equilibrium on its 
frontier." As far as is known, every other Government in the world 
tacitly acquiesced in the establishment of this precedent. 

If any Government recorded a protest, it was that of the United 
States, but even the United States protested only by inference from 
the acts and language of the President. On March 4, 1849, the admin- 
istration of President Taylor began, and the Eussian intervention in 
Hungary took place a few weeks aftewards, before the new President 
had time to consult other Governments in regard to possible action in 
European affairs. Without alliance or consultation, President Taylor 
instantly appointed an agent to inquire into the situation in Hungary. 
Secretary Clayton signed his instructions June 18, 1849, six weeks 
after the Russian troops had been ordered to enter Hungary. The 
language of these instructions was as emphatic and as decisive as that 
of the Czar's circular: 

Should the new government prove to be, in your opinion, firm and stable, * * * 
you might intimate, if you should see fit, that the President would, in that event, be 
gratified to receive a diplomatic agent from Hungary to the United States by or 
before the next meeting of Congress, and that he entertains no doubt whatever that, 
in case her new government should prove to be firm and stable, her independence 
would be speedily recognized by that enlightened body. 

The Russian intervention brought the Hungarian war so quickly to 
an end that before October all resistance was over, and when Con- 
gress met, early in December, 1849, President Taylor's annual message 
could only proclaim what would have been American policy : 

During the late conflict beween Austria and Hungary there seemed to be a prospect 
that the latter might become an independent nation. However faint that prospect 
at the time appeared, I thought it my duty, in accordance with the general sentiment 
of the American people, who deeply sympathized with the Magyar patriots, to stand 
prepared upon the contingency of the establishment by her of a permanent govern- 
ment, to be the first to welcome independent Hungary into the family of nations. 
For this purpose I invested an agent, then in Europe, with power to declare our 
willingness promptly to recognize her independence in the event of her ability to 
sustain it. The powerful intervention of Russia in the contest extinguished the 
hopes of the struggling Magyars. * * * 

To this paragraph, and to some expressions in the instructions, the 
Austrian minister was ordered to take exception. He protested accord- 
ingly. Daniel Webster had then become Secretary of State, and replied 
to the protest in a paper known as the Hulsemann letter, in which he 
declared what he believed to be the American policy and the law in 
regard to new nationalities claiming recognition : 

Of course, questions of prudence naturally arise in reference to new States brought 
by successful revolutions into the family of nations; but it is not to be required of 
neutral powers that they should await the recognition of the new government by 
the parent State. No principle of public law has been more frequently acted upon 
within the last thirty years by the great powers of the world than this. Within 
that period eight or ten new States have established independent Governments within 
the limits of the colonial dominions of Spain on this continent, and in Europe the 
same thing has been done by Belgium and Greece. The existence of all these Gov- 
ernments was recognized by some of the leading powers of Europe, as well as by 
the United States, before it was acknowledged by the States from which they had. 
separated themselves. If, therefore, the United States had gone so far as formally 

1 Annual Register, 1849, p. 333. 



10 RECOGNITION OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 

to acknowledge the independence of Hungary, although, as the event has proved, 
it would have been a precipitate step, and one from which no benefit would have 
resulted to either party, it would not, nevertheless, have been an act against the law 
of nations, provided they took no part in her contest with Austria. 

Secretary Webster's view of the rights of intervention did not cover 
ground so wide as that taken by the Czar in his circular of April, 1849, 
but the attitude of President Taylor seems to have been intended as a 
counteraction, or a protest, as far as the influence of America extended, 
not so much to the claims of right or law asserted by the Czar, as to 
the object of his intervention. The instructions of June 18, 1849, 
expressly said that Eussia " has chosen to assume an attitude of inter- 
ference, and her immense preparations for invading and reducing the 
Hungarians to the rule of Austria, from which they desire to be 
released, gave so serious a character to the contest as to awaken the 
most painful solicitude in the minds of Americans." 

Thus, on both sides the right to intervene, both for and against the 
Hungarians seems to have been claimed and not expressly denied by 
either ; and no other power appears to have offered even so much oppo- 
sition as was shown by President Taylor to the principles or to the 
acts of Eussia, which settled the course of history. 

5. STATES OF THE CHURCH, 1850. 

Besides the four precedents of Greece, Belgium, Poland, and Hun- 
gary, where new nationalities were in question, a much larger number 
of interventions occurred in Europe in the process of disruption or con- 
solidation which has, on one hand, disintegrated the ancient empires of 
the Sultan, of Spain, of the Church; and on the other, concentrated 
the new systems of Germany, Eussia, and Italy. 

Interventions have occurred most conspicuously in Spain, by France, 
in 1823; in Portugal, by England, in 1827 ; again in Spain and Portugal 
in 1836, by England and France, under what was called the quadruple 
treaty; in Piedmont and Naples, by the Holy Alliance, in 1S21; and in 
so many instances since 1848 that the mere enumeration would be long 
and difficult; but none of the disturbed countries claimed permanent 
independence under a form of revolution, unless it were perhaps the 
States of the Church, or Eome, which, on February 8, 1849, declared 
the Pope to be deposed, and set up a provisional government under a 
revolutionary triumvirate. The National Assembly of France, which 
was then a Eepublic, hastened to adopt, March 31, 1849, a resolution that 
if, "in order better to safeguard the interests and honor of France, the 
Executive should think proper to support its negotiations by a partial 
and temporary occupation in Italy, it would find in the assembly the 
most entire agreement." The assembly doubtless intended to inter- 
vene in Italy in order to protect the revolutionary movement there from 
the threatened intervention of Austria. The French Executive, Louis 
Napoleon, gave another direction to the policy of France. He immedi- 
ately sent a French army to Civita Yecchia, which landed there April 26, 
and after a bloody struggle drove the republican government out of 
Eome. The French entered Eome July 3. Pope Pius IX returned 
there in April, 1850, and during the next twenty years Eome remained 
under the occupation of a French army. 

The only reason given by France, in this instance, for intervention 
was that the occupation of Eome was necessary in order to "maintain 
the political influence of France." This was the ground taken by 
President Louis Napoleon in explaining his course to the Chambers 
in 1850. 



RECOGNITION OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 11 

The British G-overnraent acquiesced in this rule of European law or 
practice. On May 9, 1851, Lord Palinerston, then foreign secretary, 
said in Parliament, in reply to a formal inquiry, that the occupation of 
Kome was " a measure undertaken by France in her own discretion and 
in the exercise of her own judgment. The British Government had 
been no party to this measure. France had exercised her own rights 
in regard to it, and it was not at all necessary that the previous con- 
currence of the British Government should have been obtained in this 
matter. The British Government had been no party to this aggression 
and could not therefore be said to have concurred in it. It was a mat- 
ter on which they might have an opinion, but in which they had no 
particular right, by treaty or otherwise, to interfere." 

6. THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE, 1878. 

Since the year 1827 intervention in the affairs of the Ottoman Empire 
has been so constant as to create a body of jurisprudence, and a long 
series of treaties on which the existence of all political systems of south- 
eastern Europe seems now to be more or less entirely based. 

Not only Greece, Montenegro, Boumania, Bulgaria, Boumelia, Servia, 
and Egypt have been the creations of such intervention, or the objects 
of its restraints, but also Samos, Crete, and even the Lebanon owe 
their legal status to the same source. 

An authority so great must assume some foundation in law, seeing 
that the entire world acquiesced not only in the practical exercise of 
the force but also in the principle on which it rested, whatever that 
principle was. 

The treaty of Berlin in 1878 was a broad assertion of the right of the 
European powers to regulate the affairs of the Ottoman Empire, but 
the treaty contains no statement of the principle of jurisprudence on 
which the right rests. 

The preamble merely declares that the powers, "being desirous to 
regulate, with a view to European order, the questions raised in the 
East by the events of late years and by the war terminated by the pre- 
liminary treaty of San Stefano, have been unanimously of opinion that 
the meeting of a congress would offer the best means of facilitating an 
understanding." 

In effect, the treaty of Berlin reduced the Ottoman Porte to tutelage, 
extinguished its sovereignty over certain large portions of its domin- 
ions, and restrained its rights over other portions. It recognized the 
independence of Servia, Koumania, and Montenegro, and fixed their 
boundaries. It established Bulgaria as "an autonomous and tributary 
principality under the suzerainty of the Sultan." It created the prov- 
ince of Eastern Boumelia "under conditions of administrative auton- 
omy." It stipulated an organic law for Crete. It interfered in all 
directions with the internal arrangements of the Ottoman Empire. 

Perhaps the most typical instance of assumption of power by the com- 
bined governments was Article XXV of the treaty, which began : "The 
provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina shall be occupied and adminis- 
tered by Austria-Hungary." 

So liberal a use of the right of intervention has seldom been made, 
but the principle of jurisprudence on which it rested has never been offi- 
cially declared. Xothing in the treaties expressly limits to the Otto- 
man Empire the right of intervention which was exercised in its case. 
The only principle jealously insisted upon, seemed to be that of joint, 
as against separate, intervention by the European powers. With this 



12 RECOGNITION OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 

implied restriction, the right of intervention " with a view to European 
order " appears to be the only foundation for the existing status of 
southeastern Europe, and equally applicable to the rest of the world. 



These six precedents include, as far as is known, every instance 
where a claim to independence has been made by any people whatever 
in Europe since the close of the Napoleonic wars in 1815. Other suc- 
cessful revolutions, such as those of Tuscany and the States of the 
Church in 1859, were the immediate results of intervention, and that 
of Naples in 1860 was, from first to last, perhaps the most striking 
example of intervention in modern times, although Naples hardly 
thought necessary to pass through any intermediate stage of recognition 
as an independent authority. 

The six precedents, therefore, constitute the entire European law on 
the subject of intervention in regard to European peoples claiming 
independence by right of revolution. There is no other authoritative 
source of the law; for the judicial courts of Europe were bound to fol- 
low the political decision ; and the opinions of private j>erSons, whether 
jurists or politicians, being without sanction, couldnot beaccepted as law. 

From this body of precedent it is clear that Europe has invariably 
asserted and practiced the right to interfere, both collectively and sep- 
arately, amicably and forcibly, in every instance, except that of Poland, 
where a European people has resorted to insurrection to obtain independ- 
ence. 

The right itself has been based on various grounds : " Impediments 
to commerce," "Burdensome measures of protection and repression," 
" Requests " of one or both parties " to interpose," " Effusion of blood," 
and "Evils of all kinds," "Humanity" and "The repose of Europe" 
(Greek treaty of 1827) ; "A warm desire to arrest, with the shortest pos- 
sible delay, the disorder and the effusion of blood" (Protocol of Novem- 
ber 4, 1830, in the case of Belgium) ; " His own safety or the political 
equilibrium on the frontiers of his Empire" (Bussian circular of April 
27, 1849, in the case of Hungary;) "To safeguard the interest and 
honor" and to "Maintain the political influence" of the intervening 
power (French declarations of 1849-50 in regard to the States of the 
Church). Finally, in the latest and most considerable, because abso- 
lutely unanimous act of all Europe, simply the " desire to regulate" 
(Preamble to the Treaty of Berlin in 1878, covering the recognition of 
Servia, Eoumania, Montenegro, and Bulgaria). 

ASIA. 

There remains the experience of Asia and America. 

In regard to Asia, probably all authorities agree that the entire 
fabric of European supremacy, whether in Asiatic Turkey, Persia, 
Afghanistan, India, Siam, or China, rests on the right of intervention. 

The exercise of this right constitutes another large but separate 
branch of public law which, by common consent, is not regarded as 
applicable to nations of European blood. 

Furthermore, although many governments in Asia have been extin- 
guished by means of the right of intervention, none is known to have 
claimed independence founded on the right of insurrection. Certainly 
none has been recognized by Europe or America on that ground. 



RECOGNITION OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 13 

AMERICA, 1822-23. 

America, both North and South, has always aimed to moderate 
European interventon and to restrict its exercise. On this point we 
have the evidence of George Canning in a celebrated speech on the 
foreign-enlistment act in 1823 : 

We have spent much time [said Canning] in teaching other powers the nature of 
a strict neutrality, and generally speaking we found them most reluctant scholars. 
* * If I wished for a guide in a system of neutrality I should take that laid 
down hy America in the days of the presidency of Washington and the secretary- 
ship of Jefferson. 

In fact, the British Government did take that guide. The American 
neutrality act of 1794, revised and reenacted in the act of April 20, 
1818, served as the model for the British foreign-enlistment act in 1819. 
The cause of that act of 1819 was stated by Canning in the speech 
just cited : 

When peace was concluded between this country and Spain in 1814, an article 
was introduced into the treaty by which this country bound itself not to furnish any 
succors to what were then denominated the revolted colonies of Spain. In process 
of time, as those colonies became more powerful, a question arose of a very difficult 
nature, to be decided on a due consideration of their de jure relation to Spain on 
the one side, and their de facto independence of her on the other. The law of 
nations was entirely silent with respect to a course which, under a circumstance so 
peculiar as the transition of colonies from their allegiance to the parent state, ought 
to be pursued. It was difficult to know how far either the statute law or the com- 
mon law was applicable to colonies so situated. It became necessary, therefore, in 
the act of 1818, to treat the colonies as actually independent of Spain. * * * 

Apparently Canning did not consider that the revolt of the American 
colonies in 1776 offered a precedent for "a circumstance so peculiar as 
the transition of colonies from their allegiance." He regarded the situ- 
ation as so peculiar that it needed to be met by measures in regard to 
which "the law of nations was entirely silent." He seemed to regard 
the foreign-enlistment act as a recognition of independence. 

The Government of the United States was not so much perplexed in 
regard to the steps by which colonies achieved independence; but in 
the actual condition of Europe, where the Holy Alliance held entire 
control and intervened everywhere against claims based on the right 
of insurrection, the President had the strongest reasons for moving 
slowly, and, if possible, only in concert with England. 

The disturbances in the Spanish colonies in America had begun as a 
consequence of the overthrow of the Bourbon dynasty by Napoleon 
and the establishment of Joseph Bonaparte as King of Spain in 1808; 
but the movements for independence took serious form at a much later 
time. 

In Mexico, the first national congress met at Chilpancingo in 1813, 
and formally declared the independence of Mexico on the 6th of Novem- 
ber of that year. It was practically suppressed by the execution of 
Morelos, December 22, 1815, and did not revive until Iturbide, in Jan- 
uary, 1821, joined Guerrero in the so-called plan of Iguala. Iturbide 
made his triumphal entry into the City of Mexico September 27, 1821. 

Venezuela first declared independence on July 15, 1811, but the 
Spanish forces continued the war until General Bolivar drove them from 
the interior in 1821, and General Paez captured Puerto Cabello in 1823. 

Chile began her revolution in 1810, but did not declare independence 
until January 1, 1818, and then only by proclamation of the executive 
authority, "the actual circumstances of the war not permitting the 
convocation of a national congress." 



14 RECOGNITION OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 

Buenos Ayres also began her revolution in 1810, but did not declare 
independence and claim recognition until October 25, 1816. 

The question of intervention began in 1817. The Spanish Govern- 
ment appealed to the European powers for aid. The Czar openly took 
sides with Spain, and when, in September, 1817, the Spanish Govern- 
ment asked permission to build several ships of war in the Eussian 
dockyards, the Czar suggested that Spain should buy five ships of the 
line and three frigates belonging to the Eussian navy. This was done, 
and the ships were sent to the seat of war. At the same time, in 
October, 1817, the Eussian Government instructed its ambassador in 
London to press on the British Government the great importance of 
European intervention. 

Great Britain declared energetically that she would have no part in 
trying to force back the subjects of Spain under the domination of an 
oppressive Government. In fact, Lord Castlereagh had already 
assured President Monroe that if Great Britain intervened at all it 
would be on a system of perfect liberality to the Spanish provinces, 
and the President decided, as early as April, 1818, to discourage Euro- 
pean mediation and to take the ground that there could be no rational 
interference except on the basis of the independence of the South 
Americans. In August he made a formal proposal to the British and 
French Governments for a concerted and contemporary recognition of 
Buenos Ayres, whose de facto independence made that country the 
natural object of a first step toward the establishment of a general 
policy. In December he notified both Governments that he had 
patiently waited without interfering in the policy of the allies, but as 
they had not agreed upon anything, and as the fact of the independence 
of Buenos Ayres appeared established, he thought that recognition was 
necessary. In January, 1819, he announced to them that he was 
actually considering the measure. 

Thus, all parties had agreed, as early as 1817 and 1818, upon the pro- 
priety of intervention between Spain and her colonies. Both the 
United States and Europe asserted that the time had come; they disa- 
greed only as to the mode. When Lord Castlereagh, at the Congress 
of Aix-la-Chapelle, in October, 1818, proposed to the four other powers 
"to intervene in the war between Spain and her American colonies by 
addressing offers of mediation to the two belligerents," Eussia ener- 
getically opposed and rejected the scheme, not because it was interven- 
tion, but apparently because it was mediation, and to that extent recog- 
nized rights in the insurgents. When President Monroe interposed his 
fiat that no interference could be countenanced by him except on the 
basis of independence, he dictated in advance the only mode of inter- 
vention which he meant to permit. If he waited before carrying it out 
it was only because in the actual balance of European and American 
power he felt that isolated action might injure the cause he had deter- 
mined to help. 

He waited in vain. Neither England nor any other power moved 
again. No information came from Europe. No further attempt to sub- 
ject the revolted colonies was probable, and even the declaration of the 
Congress of Troppau in November, 1820, which announced a general 
and active intervention against all " illegitimate" authorities, caused 
little alarm as long as England and France were not parties to it. 
Delay was not dangerous. The system which Monroe aimed to estab- 
lish could not be firm or broad as long as it rested on the recognition 
of a single country like Buenos Ayres or on the isolated action of the 
United States. That system included all American communities which 



RECOGNITION OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 15 

rejected foreign authority; it was to be taken as a whole, and referred 
to every part of the contest, from the recognition of the flag at the 
outset to the recognition of independence at the close. Therefore, 
Monroe waited until the effect of his action should settle the whole 
question and cover all the ground. After a delay of four years from 
the time when he began his policy, the Greek revolt in Europe and the 
military successes of Bolivar and Iturbide in America gave the desired 
opportunity, and Monroe sent to Congress his celebrated message of 
March 8, 1822, recommending the recognition of all the revolted "colo- 
nies of Spain — Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and Buenos Ayres. 

These countries asked no more. They based their claim on their 
independence de facto, and Monroe admitted its force. " The prov- 
inces," he said, " which have declared their independence and are in 
the enjoyment of it, ought to be recognized." He added that "the 
measure is proposed under a thorough conviction that it is in strict 
accord with the law of nations." In reality, it created the law, so far 
as its action went, and its legality was recognized by no European 
power. All waited in open or tacit disapproval of Monroe's course. 
England herself, even after Canning succeeded Castlereagh, refused to 
approve. Spain protested vigorously; and, as far as concerned objec- 
tions, the Spanish minister in Washington offered them in great num- 
bers and with sufficient energy. He instantly protested, not only on 
grounds of morality and fact, but also of policy. " Buenos Ayres," he 
said, was " sunk in the most complete anarchy;" in Peru, "near the 
gates of its capital," a rebel and a Spanish army divided the inhabitants ; 
in Chili, "an individual suppresses the sentiments of its inhabitants;" 
"on the coast of Terra Firma, also, the Spanish banners wave; " "in 
Mexico, too, there is no government;" and he concluded, with force: 
"Where then are those governments which ought to be recognized?" 

The question was not without difficulties, as Monroe knew; and on 
this point all Europe supported the Spanish contention. Although 
Congress unanimously approved and adopted the President's views, 
and immediately appropriated $100,000 for diplomatic expenses; and 
although Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and Buenos Ayres were in conse- 
quence admitted into the family of nations by the sole authority of the 
President of the United States, with the approval of Congress, two 
years passed before the British Government consented even to discuss 
the" subject in Parliament as a serious measure of policy. 

Then, on June 15, 1821, a motion was made by Sir James Mackin- 
tosh, and Canning replied. His speech made no allusion to the action 
of the United States ; it denied the de facto right of recognition so far 
as to say that "we ought not to acknowledge the separate and inde- 
pendent existence of any government which is so doubtfully established 
that the mere effect of that acknowledgment shall be to mix parties 
again in internal squabbles if not in open hostilities." Canning still 
thought " that, before we can act, information as to matters of fact 
is necessary." 

Nevertheless, Monroe's act, which extinguished the last hopes of the 
Holy Alliance in America, produced the deepest sensation among Euro- 
pean conservatives, and gave to the United States extraordinary con- 
sideration. England used it as a weapon at the Congress of Verona to 
threaten the other powers when they decided on intervention in Spain. 
Slowly Canning came wholly over to the side of Monroe as France and 
Austria forced his hands in Spain. As early as October, 1823, he sent 
consuls to all the chief cities in rebellion throughout Mexico and Cen- 
tral and South America. Immediately after his speech in Parliament 



16 RECOGNITION OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 

of June 15, 1824, he authorized his consul at Buenos Ayres to negotiate 
a commercial treaty with that Government. On the 1st of January, 
1825, he notified other powers that England had determined to recog- 
nize the independence of Colombia, Mexico, and Buenos Ayres. In a 
speech in Parliament on the 15th of February, 1825, he explained and 
defended his conduct, blaming the United States, by implication, for 
pursuing "a reckless and headlong course," and claiming credit for fol- 
lowing one "more strictly guarded in point of principle." "The whole 
question was one of time and mode." 

Not withstanding Canning's explanation, the principle of intervention 
on which he acted was not clear. Nothing in his act of recognition 
revealed a rule of any general value. He considered that " any other 
period or mode than that chosen would have been liable to some objec- 
tion." Yet the period and mode he chose were strongly objected to 
throughout Europe, and met with energetic protest from Spain. Nearly 
two years more passed before he cleared up the mystery. Then, when 
driven to armed intervention in the affairs of Spain and Portugal, be 
made, on the 12th of December, 1826, a speech in Parliament which was 
perhaps the most celebrated of his life. At the very end of this speech 
he explained the "principle" on which he had acted in regard to 
the independence of the Spanish colonies, and the "time and mode" 
of recognition. It was the moment when a French army took posses- 
sion of Spain : 

If France occupied Spain, was it necessary, in order to avoid the consequences of 
that occupation, that we should blockade Cadiz ? No ! I looked another way. I 
sought materials of compensation in another hemisphere. Contemplating Spain, 
such as our ancestors had known her, I resolved that if France had Spain, it should 
not be Spain "with the Indies." I called the New World into existence to redress 
the balance of the Old. 

The principle thus avowed by Canning added little to the European 
law of intervention ; but the principle avowed by Monroe created an 
entire body of American jurisprudence. As an isolated act it meant 
little, but in Monroe's view it was not an isolated act ; it was part of a 
system, altogether new and wholly American ; and it was to be justified 
on grounds far wider than itself. The European law and practice of 
intervention, extending, as it did, its scope and energy with every 
new step in European development, could be met only by creating an 
American law and practice of intervention exclusive of the European 
within the range of its influence. This Monroe did not hesitate to do. 
With boldness which still startles and perplexes the world, he lopped 
off one great branch of European intervention and empire and created 
a new system of international relations. His opportunity was given 
by Canning, who, in the midst of his European difficulties in 1823, 
intimated that England would be well pleased to see the United States 
take ground even more advanced than in the recognition of the South 
American revolted States. Monroe lost no time in doubts or hesita- 
tions. In his annual message of December, 1823, he announced the 
principle that the new nations which his act alone had recognized as 
independent were by that act placed outside of the European system, 
and that the United States would regard any attempt to extend that 
system among them as unfriendly to the United States. 

With the Governments who have declared their independence, and maintained it, 
and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, 
acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing 
them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in 
any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the 
United States. * * * It is impossible that the allied powers should extend their 



RECOGNITION OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 17 

political system to any portion of either continent without endangering onr peace 
and happiness. * * It is equally impossible, therefore, that we should behold 

such interposition in any form with indifference. 

So sweeping- a right of intervention bad never been claimed unless 
by Russia in regard to tbe Greeks in 1821, and has never been exercised 
by any other single power; but the claim rested on the same general 
ground as that of the innumerable interventions of Europe. "Danger 
to our peace and happiness" was not essentially different from "danger 
to peace, honor, political power, and interests" which European nations 
had alleged as just reasons for intervention, and while the right of 
intervention on this ground was so energetically maintained, the right 
of deciding absolutely as to the time and mode of intervention was as 
energetically exercised by Monroe. 

From that day to this the American people have always, and unan- 
imously, supported and approved the Monroe doctrine. They needed 
no reasoning to prove that it was vital to their safety. The enormous 
and rapidly increasing force developed by Europe in her system of 
joint action, from the treaty of Verona to the overwhelming authority, 
hitherto unknown to mankind, which was exhibited in the treaty of 
Berlin; the rapid extension of her system over the rest of the world y 
and the inevitable pressure of its expansion; her immense superiority 
in wealth and mechanical resources; the irresistible energy of her 
enormous naval and military armaments when concentrated, as under 
the Berlin treaty, in a single mass, left no doubt that America must 
abandon the hope of independence if she could not maintain a system 
of her own. Europeans, indeed, sometimes expressed fear of America, 
but their fears rested only on the assumption that America could stand 
apart. Even the celebrated historian Niebuhr complained because the 
Czar did not conquer the Turkish Empire and found Christian states 
in Asia Minor in order to balance the growing power of America. 
Europe did not, it is true, adopt Mebuhr's advice and colonize Asia 
Minor, but she conquered, or subdued under her system, all the rest of 
Asia, and used this accession of strength for her common objects. She 
spread her system over all Asia, all Africa, all Australasia, and all 
Polynesia. America made no contest, even within America, except in 
regard to those countries or communities which expressly declared their 
will and their power to be American. 

Within that limited range President Monroe attempted to build up 
an American system. He disclaimed the right or the intention to 
interfere with actual European possessions in America, so long as these 
communities were contented to remain European; but he claimed and 
exercised, under the broadest principle, the right to intervene in favor 
of communities that plainly displayed their wish and their power to 
be American; and, what was vital to the exercise of his claim, he 
asserted and used in its fullest extent the right to judge for himself, 
and finally, both as to " time and mode," — both when and how — any par- 
ticular community had proved its will and its right to claim admission 
into the American system. Against the opposition of all Europe, and 
at the risk of many and serious embarrassments, Monroe took and sue 
cessfully held ground which his successors have struggled with vary- 
ing fortune to maintain. 

The right of intervention lay necessarily at the bottom of the strife 
of forces, and the United States exercised it freely, although usually 
striving to exercise it for the common good of an American system. In 
the case of Texas, the United States Government, as is notorious, exer- 
cised the whole right of intervention against an American power; but 
S. Rep. 1160 2 



18 RECOGNITION OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 

the case of Texas did not differ in principle from that of Colombia, 
except in being wholly an American and domestic affair. In both 
instances the intervention rested on the claim of the Executive and 
the Legislature to be absolute and final judge of the "time and mode" 
of interference. In no case were other governments expected to sanc- 
tion the decision in order to give it validity. 

In the case of Texas, however, we have to call attention to a subject 
on which the proposed action of Congress necessarily depends. 

In a report made June 18, 1836, by Mr. Clay, from the Senate Committee on For- 
eign Relations, in respect to the recognition of the independence of Texas (Senate 
Doc. 406, Twenty-fourth Congress, first session), are the following passages: 

The recognition of Texas as an independeut power may he made by the United 
States in various ways : First, by treaty ; second, by the passage of a law regulating 
commercial intercourse between the two powers; third, by sending a diplomatic 
agent to Texas with the usual credentials; or, lastly, by the Executive receiving and 
accrediting a diplomatic representative from Texas, which would be a recognition as 
far as the Executive only is competent to make it. In the first and third modes the 
concurrence of the Senate in its executive character would be necessary, and in the 
second in its legislative character. 

The Senate alone, without the cooperation of some other branch of the Govern- 
ment, is not competent to recognize the existence of any power. 

The President of the United States, by the Constitution, has the charge of their 
foreign intercourse. Regularly he ought to take the initiative in the acknowledg- 
ment of the independence of any new power, but in this case he has not yet done it, 
for reasons which he, without doubt, deems sufficient. If in any instance the Presi- 
dent should be tardy, he may be quickened in the exercise of his power by the 
expression of the opinion, or by other acts, of one or both branches of Congress, as 
was done in relation to the Republics formed out of Spanish America. But the 
committee do not think that on this occasion any tardiness is justly imputable to 
the Executive. About three months only have elapsed since the establishment of an 
independent government in Texas, and it is not unreasonable to wait a short time to 
see what its operation will be, and especially whether it will afford those guaranties 
which foreign powers have a right to expect before they institute relations with it. 

Taking this view of the whole matter, the committee concluded by 
recommending to the Senate the adoption of the following resolution: 

Iicsolved, Thatthe independence of Texas ought to be acknowledged by theUnited 
States whenever satisfactory information shall be received that it has in successful 
operation a civil government capable of performing the duties and fulfilling the 
obligations of an independent power. 

President Andrew Jackson, in his Texas message of December 21, 
1836, began by calling attention to these resolutions passed by " the 
two Houses at their last session, acting separately, l that the independ- 
ence of Texas ought to be acknowledged by the United States when- 
ever satisfactory information should be received that it had in 
successful operation a civil government capable of performing the 
duties and fulfilling the obligations of an independent power. 7 " After 
treating shortly the principles of recognition, President Jackson con- 
tinued : 

Nor has any deliberate inquiry ever been instituted in Congress, or in any of our 
legislative bodies, as to whom belonged the power of recognizing a new State — a 
power the exercise of which is equivalent, under some circumstances, to a declara- 
tion of war; a power nowhere expressly delegated, and only granted in the Consti- 
tution, as it is necessarily involved in some of the great powers given to Congress; 
in that given to the President and Senate to form treaties with foreign powers, and 
to appoint ambassadors and other public ministers, and in that conferred upon the 
President to receive ministers from foreign nations. In the preamble to the resolu- 
tion of the House of Representatives it is distinctly intimated that the expediency 
of recognizing the independence of Texas should be left to the decision of Congress. 
In this view, on the ground of expediency, I am disposed to concur, and do not 
therefore consider it necessary to express any opinion as to the strict constitutional 
right of the Executive, either apart from or in conjunction with the Senate over 



RECOGNITION OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 19 

the subject. It is to be presumed tbat on no future occasion will a dispute arise, as 
none bas heretofore occurred, between the Executive and the Legislature in the exer- 
cise of the power of recognition. It will always be considered consistent with the 
spirit of the Constitution and most safe that it should be exercised, when proba- 
bly leading to war, with a previous understanding with that body by whom war can 
alone be declared, and by whom all the provisions for sustaining its perils must be 
furnished. Its submission to Congress, which represents in one of its branches the 
States of this Union and in the other the people of the United States, where there 
may be reasonable ground to apprehend so grave a consequence, would certainly 
afford the fullest satisfaction to our own country and a perfect guaranty to all other 
nations of the justice and prudence of the measures which might be adopted. 

The initiative thus asserted by Congress and couceded by President 
Jackson to Congress in the case of the recognition of Texas was fol- 
lowed in the case of Hungary by President Taylor in the instructions 
already quoted, which authorized his agent to invite the revolutionary 
government of Hungary to send to the United States a diplomatic rep- 
resentative, since the President entertained no doubt that in such case 
at the next meeting of Congress "her independence would be speedily 
recognized by that enlightened body." 

Until now no further question has been raised in regard to the powers 
of Congress. 

So much space has been taken by this historical summary that the 
case of Texas must be passed over without further notice, and the cases 
of Haiti and Santo Domingo may be set aside as governed by peculiar 
influences. The record shows that in every instance except Poland 
down to 1S50 where any people has claimed independence by right of 
revolt the right of intervention has been exercised against the will of 
one or the other party to the dispute. In every instance the oidy ques- 
tion that has disturbed the intervening powers has regarded neither 
the right nor the policy so much as the "time and mode" of action. 
The only difference between the European and American practice was 
that the United States aimed at moderating or restricting the extreme 
license of European intervention, and this was the difference which 
brought the United States nearly into collision with Europe in 1861 
and 1862. Lords Palmerston and Russell, as well as the Emperor 
Napoleon and his ministers, entertained no doubt of their right to inter- 
vene even before our civil war had actually commenced, and accord- 
ingly recognized the insurgent States as belligerents in May, 1861, 
although no legal question had yet been raised requiring such a deci- 
sion. The United States Government never ceased to protest with the 
utmost energy against the act as premature and unjust, and this last 
and most serious case of interference, in which the United States was 
concerned as an object of European intervention, revealed the vital 
necessity of their American s} 7 stem at the same time that it revealed 
the imminent danger of its destruction. 

THE UNITED STATES AND MEXICO, 1861-1866. 

Allusion has been already made to the declaration of Lord John Rus- 
sell on the part of the British Government in the House of Commons 
May 6, 1861. in which he announced that the law officers of the Crown 
had already "come to the opinion that the Southern Confederacy of 
America, according to those principles which seem to them to be just 
principles, must be treated as a belligerent." This astonishing promise 
of belligerency to an insurrection which had by the latest advices at 
that time neither a ship at sea nor an army on land, before the fact of 
war was officially known in England to have been proclaimed bj' either 
party, was accompanied by a letter of the same date from Lord Johu 



20 RECOGNITION OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 

Eussell to the British ambassador at Paris, in which he said that the 
accounts which had been received from America were "sufficient to 
show that a civil war has broken out among the States which lately 
composed the American Union." 

Other nations have therefore to consider the light in which, with reference to that 
war, they are to regard the Confederacy into which the Southern States have united 
themselves; and it appears to Her Majesty's Government that, looking at all the 
circumstances of the case, they can not hesitate to admit that such Confederacy is 
entitled to be considered as a belligerent, invested with all the rights and preroga- 
tives of a belligerent. 

Under these circumstances, Lord John Eussell invited the Emperor 
of France to cooperate with England in " a joint endeavor" to obtain 
" from each of the belligerents " certain concessions in favor of neutrals. 
On May 8 the French minister "concurred entirely in the views of 
Her Majesty's Government" and pledged himself to the joint action. 
On May 13 the British Government issued its formal proclamation of 
neutrality between the United States and "certain States styling them- 
selves the Confederate States of America." 

Lord John Eussell justified this action on the ground of " the size 
and poiralation of the seceding States" and "the critical condition of 
our (British) commerce." He denied that the British Government had 
any thought of giving assistance to the South. 

Nevertheless, the language of Lord John Eussell showed that he con- 
sidered the issue as decided in advance and that his measures were 
shaped on that assumption. His speech of May 6 characterized the 
insurgents without qualification as " the Southern Confederacy of Amer- 
ica." In his official correspondence with his official agents he used the 
term "Northern or Southern confederation of North America," or "the 
Confederate States of America," as though their independence were 
fully established. All his expressions and acts warranted the belief 
that the recognition of belligerency was in his mind only a preliminary 
step to the recognition of independence as an already accomplished 
fact, and that he had hurried the declaration of belligerency in order to 
avoid the remonstrances certain to be made by the new American min- 
ister about to arrive. More serious still as a symptom of European 
temper was the joint action concerted between England and France, 
which soon proved that England, while waiting for the dissolution of 
the Union, meant, in recognizing the independence of the Southern Con- 
federacy, to revive her old belligerent claims of 1812, which had never 
been expressly abandoned. 

This threatened wreck of all American rights was even more immi- 
nent than our highest officials supposed. Only by slow degrees have 
we learned how narrow an escape we made, and even at this day much 
remains to be revealed. We know that as early as March, 1861, the 
French minister at Washington advised his Government to recognize 
the Confederate States, and in May he advised it to intervene by for- 
cibly raising the American blockade. Mercier's recommendation was 
communicated to Eussell, who entertained no doubts as to the right of 
intervention, either diplomatic or military, even at that early moment 
when the serious operations of war had hardly begun. 

There is much good sense in Mercier's observations [wrote Russell to Palmerston, 
October 17]. But we must wait; I am persuaded that, if we do anything, it must 
be on a grand scale. It will not do for England and France to break a blockade for 
the sake of getting cotton; but in Europe powers have often said to belligerents : 
"Make up your quarrels. We propose to give terms of pacification which we think 
fair and equitable. If you accept them, well and good. But if your adversary 
accepts them, and if you refuse them, our mediation is at an end, and you must 
expect to see us your enemies." 



RECOGNITION OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 21 

France would be quite ready to bold tins language with us. If sucb a policy were 
to be adopted, tbe time for it would be tbe end of tbe year, or immediately before 
tbe meeting of Parliament. 

Already (on May 6) Eussell Lad officially announced the Greek prece- 
dent as his rule of law. In October he was ready to take the last step 
but one in the line of the Greek example. The five years of 1821 
counted as five months in 1861. Palmerston was not yet ready. And 
the concession of the United States in the Trent affair, in the follow- 
ing winter, made an aggressive movement less popular in England. 
But in the autumn of 1862 Palmerston also thought the moment had 
arrived. Neither of these two powerful statesmen, the highest English 
authorities of their times on the subjects of foreign relations, doubted 
the right or the expediency of intervention after the second campaign 
iu Virginia. On September 14, 1862, Palmerston wrote to Russell 
suggesting a joint offer by England and France of what is diplomati- 
cally called "good offices," as in the Greek protocol of 1826. Russell 
eagerly approved : 

Whether the Federal Army is destroyed or not [replied Eussell to Palmerston, 
September 17, 1862] it is clear that it is driven back to Washington aud has made 
no progress in subduing the insurgent States. Such being the case, I agree with yon 
that tbe time is come for offering mediation to the United States Government with a 
view to the recognition of the independence of the Confederates. I agree, further, 
that in case of failure we ought ourselves to recognize the Southern States as an 
independent State. For the purpose of taking so important a step I think we must 
have a meeting of the Cabinet. The 23d or 30th would suit me for the meeting. 

We ought then, if we agree on such a step, to propose it first to France, and then, 
on the part of England and Frauce, to Russia and other powers, as a measure decided 
upon by us. 

We ought to make ourselves safe in Canada. * * * 

In this scheme of intervention Russell once more advanced beyond 
the Greek precedent. Canning would move only in concert with Russia. 
Eussell proposed to move in concert with France alone. 

Palmerston replied September 23 : 

Your plan of proceedings about the mediation between the Federals and Confed- 
erates seems to be excellent. Of course the offer would be made to both the contend- 
ing parties at the same time, for, though the offer would be as sure to be accepted by 
the Southerns as was the proposal of the Prince of Wales to the Danish princess, yet 
in the one case, as in the other, there are certain forms which it is decent and proper 
to go through. 

A question would occur whether, if the two parties were to accept mediation, the 
fact of our mediating would not of itself be tantamount to an acknowledgment of 
the Confederates as an independent State. 

Might it not be well to ask Russia to join England and France in the offer of 
mediation! * * * 

We should be better without her in the mediation, because she would be too favor- 
able to the North ; but, on the other hand, her participation in the offer might render 
the North the more willing to accept it. 

The middle of October was the time suggested by Palmerston for 
action. 

If the Federals sustain a great defeat they may be at once ready for mediation, 
and the iron should be struck while it is hot. If, on the other hand, they should 
have the best of it, we may wait awhile and see what may follow. 

Fortunately for the United States, Russell and Palmerston found 
their serious difficulties not in France or in the law, but in the political 
division of their own party. These two powerful statesmen, who had 
been both honored with the position of prime minister of England, had 
united their influence to create the exising ministry. They seem to 
have supposed that their united authority was sufficient to control the 
ministry they had created, but the moment Russell opened the subject 
to others he received a check. He persevered ; he issued a confidential 



22 RECOGNITION OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 

memorandum suggesting his idea; lie brought the subject before a cabi- 
net meeting October 23, 1862, and the division of opinion proved to be 
so serious that the subject was postponed. The question became one 
of internal politics, social divisions, and party majorities. 

The scheme of intervention was embraced by the Emperor of France 
as seriously as by Eussell and Palmerston. Long before the two 
English statesmen decided to act, Napoleon III had given his first 
interview to the Confederate agent accredited to his Government. News 
of the defeat of the Union army before Richmond reached Paris on 
the 15th of July, 1862, and the next day Mr. Slidell asked and received 
an interview. The Emperor talked with exceeding frankness, accord- 
ing to the report made by Mr. Sliclell to Mr. Benjamin: 

The Emperor received me with great kindness and [said] * • * that he had 
from the first seen the true character of the contest, and considered the reestablish- 
ment of the Union impossible and final separation a mere question of time; that the 
difficulty was to find a way to give effect to his sympathies; that he had always 
desired to preserve the most friendly relation with England, and that in so grave a 
question he had not been willing to act without her cooperation; that he had several 
times intimated his wish for action in our behalf, but had met with no favorable 
response, and that, besides, England had a deeper interest in the question than 
France; that she wished him to draw the chestnuts from the fire for her benefit; 
* * * that he had committed a great error which he now deeply regretted ; France 
should never have respected the blockade ; that the European powers should have 
recognized us last summer when our ports were in our possession and when we were 
menacing Washington, but what, asked he, could now be done? 

Napoleon's language was not official, but he had committed himself 
beyond recall by the policy he described, for hardly had the civil war 
broken out than he had plunged into a scheme of armed intervention 
in Mexico. Perhaps the ultimate salvation of America, in this crisis, 
was due to the mistake of judgment which led Europe to attack the 
Monroe doctrine and the American system in Mexico instead of attack- 
ing its heart. He made no secret of his wish to substitute French 
influence on the Gulf of Mexico in the place of American. This had 
been the dream of every great French ruler, and Napoleon III had a 
11 doctrine" of his own, far more ancient than that of Monroe and 
backed by more formidable military force. Europe did intervene by 
arms in the American civil war, but fortunately she attacked our ally 
and only indirectly ourselves. Fortunately, too, in betraying his ulti- 
mate objects in Mexico, Napoleon alienated England and did not 
conciliate Spain. 

Yet the attack was made, violently in Mexico, more cautiously at 
Washington, and as systematically as the mutual jealousies of Europe 
permitted. At the moment when Russell and Palmerston brought their 
scheme of intervention before the British cabinet, Napoleon sent reen- 
forcements of 35,000 men to his force in Mexico, with orders to occupy 
the country, and simultaneously sent a formal invitation to England 
and Russia to intervene in the American civil war. 

These papers have not been published, and we do not know the 
express grounds on which the invitation was offered or declined. To 
the fact that Russia was avowedly friendly, and that the two most 
powerful British prime ministers of their time were outvoted in their 
own cabinet, America owed her escape from European domination. 
Mexico, indeed, suffered severely, but only while our civil war was in 
doubt. From the moment the authority of the Union was wholly 
restored in 1865, the entire influence of the United States Government 
was exerted to reestablish also the authority of the Monroe doctrine. 
The life of the one was dependent on the life of the other. 



RECOGNITION OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 23 

CUBA. 

Into this American system, thus created by Monroe in 1822-23, aud 
embracing- then, besides the United States, only Buenos Ayres, Chile, 
Colombia, and Mexico, various other communities have since claimed, 
and in most cases have received admission, until it now includes all 
South America, except the Guianas ; all Central America, except the 
British colony of Honduras, and the two black Bepublics of Spanish 
Santo Domingo and Haiti in the Antilles. 

No serious question was again raised with any European power in 
regard to the insurrection or independence of their American posses- 
sions, until in 1S69, a rebellion broke out in Cuba, and the insurgents, 
after organizing a government and declaring their independence, 
claimed recognition from the United States. 

The Government of the United States had always regarded Cuba as 
within the sphere of its most active and serious interest. As early as 
1825, when the newly recognized States of Colombia and Mexico were 
supposed to be preparing an expedition to revolutionize Cuba and Puerto 
Bico, the United States Government interposed its friendly offices with 
those Governments to request their forbearance. The actual condition 
of Spain seemed to make her retention of Cuba impossible, in which 
case the United States would have been obliged, for her own safety, 
to prevent the island from falling into the hands of a stronger power in 
Europe. That this emergency did not occur may have been partly due 
to the energy with which Monroe announced "our right and our power 
to prevent it," and his determination to use all the means within his 
competency "•to guard against and forefend it." 

' This right of intervention in matters relating to the external 
relations of Cuba, asserted and exercised seventy years ago, has 
been asserted and exercised at every crisis in which the island has 
been involved. 

When the Cuban insurgents in 1869 appealed to the United States 
for recognition, President Grant admitted the justice of the claim, and 
directed the minister of the United States at Madrid to interpose our 
good offices with the Spanish Government in order to obtain by a 
friendly arrangement the independence of the Island. The story of 
of that intervention is familiar to every member of the Senate, and was 
made the basis of its resolution last session, requesting the President 
once more " to interpose his friendly offices with the Spanish Govern- 
ment for the recognition of the independence of Cuba." 

The resolution then adopted by Congress was perfectly understood 
to carry with it all the consequences which necessarily would follow 
the rejection by Spain of friendly offices. On this point the situation 
needs no further comment. The action taken by Congress in the last 
session was taken "on great consideration and on just principles," on 
a right of intervention exercised twenty-seven years ago, and after a 
patient delay unexampled iu history. 

The interval of nine months which has elapsed since that action of 
Congress, has proved the necessity of carrying it out to completion. In 
the words of the President's Annual Message: "The stability two 
years 1 duration has given to the insurrection; the feasibility of its 
indefinite prolongation in the nature of things, and as shown by past 
experience; the utter and imminent ruin of the island unless the pres- 
ent strife is speedily composed" are, in our opinion, conclusive evidence 
that "the inability of Spain to deal successfully with the insurrection 
has become manifest, and it is demonstrated that the sovereignty is 



24 RECOGNITION OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 

extinct in Cuba for all purposes of its rightful existence, * * * a 
hopeless struggle for its reestablishment has degenerated into a strife 
which means nothing more than the useless sacrifice of human life and 
the utter destruction of the very subject-matter of the conflict." 

Although the President appears to have reached a different conclu- 
sion from ours, we believe this to be the actual situation of Cuba, and, 
being unable to see that further delay could lead to any other action 
than that which the President anticipates, we agree with the conclusion 
of the message, that, in such case, onr obligations to the sovereignty of 
Spain are "superseded by higher obligations which we can hardly hesi- 
tate to recognize and discharge." Following closely the action of Presi- 
dent Monroe in 1818, Congress has already declared in effect its opinion 
that there can be no rational interference except on the basis of inde- 
pendence. 

In 1822, as now, but with more force, it was objected, as we have 
shown, that the revolted States had no governments to be recognized. 
Divisions, and even civil war, existed among the insurgents them- 
selves. Among the Cubans no such difficulty is known to exist. In 
September, 1S95, as we know by official documents printed on the spot, 
the insurgent government was regularly organized, a constitution 
adopted, a president elected, and, in due course, the various branches 
of administration set in motion. Since then, so far as we are informed, 
this government has continued to perform its functions undisturbed. 
On the military side, as we officially know, they have organized, 
equipped, and maintained in the field, sufficient forces to baffle the 
exertions of 200,000 Spanish soldiers. On the civil side they have 
organized their system of administration in every province for, as we 
know officially, they "roam at will over at least two- thirds of the inland 
country." Diplomatically they have maintained a regularly accredited 
representative in the United States for the past year, who has never 
ceased to ask recognition and to offer all possible information. There 
is no reason to suppose that any portion of the Cuban people would 
be dissatisfied by our recognizing their representative in this country 
or that they disagree in the earnest wish for that recognition. The 
same thing could hardly be said of all the countries recognized by 
Monroe in 1822. Greece had no such stability when it was recognized 
by England, Russia, and France. Belgium had nothing of the sort 
when she was recognized by all the powers in 1830. Of the States 
recognized by the treaty of Berlin in 1878, we need hardly say more 
than that they were the creatures of intervention. 

The only question that properly remains for Congress to consider is 
the mode which should be adopted for the step which Congress is 
pledged next to take. 

The Government of the United States entertains none but the friend- 
liest feelings toward Spain. Its most anxious wish is to avoid even 
the appearance of an unfriendliness which is wholly foreign to its 
thought. For more than a hundred years, amidst divergent or clash- 
ing interests, and under frequent and severe strains, the two Govern- 
ments have succeeded in avoiding collision, and there is no friendly 
office which Spain could ask, which the United States, within the limits 
of their established principles and policy, would not be glad to extend. 
In the present instance they are actuated by an earnest wish to avoid 
the danger of seeming to provoke a conflict. 

The practice of Europe in regard to intervention, as in the instances 
cited, has been almost invariably harsh and oppressive. The practice of 
the United States has been almost invariably mild and forbearing. 



KECOGNITION OF CUBAN INDEPENDENCE. 25 

Among the precedents which have been so numerously cited there can 
be no doubt as to the choice. The most moderate is the best. Among 
these, the attitude taken by President Monroe in 1822 is the only atti- 
tude which can properly be regarded as obligatory for a similar situation 
to-day. The course pursued by the United States in the recognition of 
Colombia is the only course which Congress can consistently adopt. 

We recommend, therefore, the joint resolution, with amendments to 
read as follows: 

" Resolved by the Senate mid House of Representatives of the United 
States of America in Congress assembled. That the independence of the 
Republic of Cuba be, and the same is hereby, acknowledged by the 
United States of America. 

u Be it further resolved, That the United States will use its friendly 
offices with the Government of Spain to bring to a close the war between 
Spain and the Republic of Cuba." 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



015 819 614 1 



